New Book | Arachné: Un regard critique sur l’histoire de la tapisserie
Published by PUR and available from ArtBooks.com:
Pascal-François Bertrand and Audrey Nassieu Maupas, eds., Arachné: Un regard critique sur l’histoire de la tapisserie (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017), 304 pages, ISBN: 978 27535 53927, 39€ / $68.
Médium polysémique, la tapisserie touche des domaines variés comme l’histoire politique, économique ou sociale. Médium complexe dans son élaboration, elle permet, en histoire de l’art à proprement parler, d’aborder des questions essentielles, comme celles de l’invention, de la reproduction ou de la réception, à travers notamment l’étude toujours renouvelée des rôles respectifs des différents intervenants dans son processus de création.
Avec le soutien du programme ANR Arachné de l’université Bordeaux Montaigne, de la région Aquitaine et de l’École pratique des hautes études.
T A B L E D E S M A T I È R E S
• Elsa Karsallah, Stéphanie Trouvé, Audrey Nassieu Maupas, et Pascal-François Bertrand, Introduction: Replacer la tapisserie au sein de l’histoire de la création artistique
I. Sens et politique
• Katherine Sowley, La femme, symbole de l’homme: La tenture de la Dame à la licorne et le rôle de la figure féminine dans la représentation du statut social
• Cindy Kang, Georges Rochegrosse, La Conquête de l’Afrique: Interweaving Technology and Colonialism
• Élisabeth Pillet, Les joies et les fêtes de Paris: Cartons de tapisseries d’Émile Gaudissard pour l’Hôtel de Ville, 1941–45
II. La France et l’étranger: diffusions et échanges
• Elizabeth Cleland, Cupid and Psyche from Brussels to Paris: Questions of Attribution and Augmentation of Sixteenth-Century Flemish Designs Repurposed in Seventeenth-Century French Tapestries
• Anne Rivoallan, L’art des lices et la Casa Raggi aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles
• Mei Mei Rado, Qing Imperial Encounters with European Tapestries: The Tenture chinoise and Beyond
III. Tapisserie et technique
• Astrid Castres, La tapisserie à l’aiguille au XVIe siècle: Pratique domestique ou œuvre de professionnels?
• Grace Chuang, Artisans, Chemists, and Administrators: Interactions at the Dyeing Workshop of the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, 1665–1792
IV. Les manufactures royales au XVIIIe siècle: choix esthétiques
• Charissa Bremer-David, Rare Comedy: Oudry’s Molière for Beauvais
• Jean Vittet, Charles Coypel et la tenture des Fragments d’opéra, 1733–41
• Akiko Kobayashi, François Boucher et les tapisseries de Beauvais: Une approche dans le contexte de la rivalité avec la manufacture des Gobelins
• Marie-Hélène De Ribou, Une tapisserie de Thétis reçoit Apollon de Lagrenée retrouvée au Louvre: Compléments d’informations sur la tenture des Sujets mythologiques
• Florence Patrizi, Tapisseries néoclassiques: La tenture de Beauvais à bordures de grotesques
V. Tapisseries des XIXe et XXe siècles : la question de la modernité
• Zané Purmale, De la tapisserie-peinture à la tapisserie-décoration: Rapprocher la tapisserie et l’architecture au début de la IIIe République
• Agathe Le Drogoff, « Remonter aux sources de l’art vrai du passé »: Jules Diéterle, peintre et administrateur de la manufacture de Beauvais, 1876–82
• Sophie Guérin Gasc, Genèse de L’Été, première tapisserie de Dom Robert, 1941–42, à partir de la correspondance croisée entre ce dernier, Jean Lurçat et Paul Tabard
• Audrey Nassieu Maupas et Pascal-François Bertrand, Conclusion
Les auteurs
Crédits iconographiques
New Book | Höfische Bäder in der Frühen Neuzeit
From De Gruyter:
Kristina Deutsch, Claudia Echinger-Maurach, and Eva-Bettina Krems, eds., Höfische Bäder in der Frühen Neuzeit: Gestalt und Funktion (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 360 pages, ISBN: 978 311050 1681, 80€.
Despite the dread of miasmas and puritanical beliefs, the bath was always an integral element of early modern courtly culture, but it has been insufficiently researched until now. The essays in this volume [Courtly Baths in the Early Modern Period: Design and Function] cover the architecture, equipment, functions, and the culture of the court bath as reflected in the visual arts. The focus is on the importance of the bath for representing a specific understanding of dominance and aristocratic life.
Trotz Angst vor Miasmen und Sittenstrenge war das Bad stets ein fester Bestandteil der frühneuzeitlichen Hofkultur. Bislang wurde er jedoch nicht umfassend untersucht. Die Beiträge widmen sich der Architektur, Ausstattung und Funktion von Schlossbädern seit der italienischen Renaissance bis zur Französischen Revolution. Komplexe ikonographische Deutungen und vielfältige Antikenbezüge in Architektur und Ausstattung veranschaulichen den hohen Anspruch des höfischen Bades. Neben noch bestehenden oder rekonstruierbaren Räumen geht es auch um Darstellungen in den Bildkünsten, wie etwa in den Gemälden der Dames au bain. Im Fokus steht die Rolle des Bades als Ausdruck des höfischen und adeligen Lebens, eines Herrschafts- und Machtanspruchs und von dessen Legitimierung.
I N H A L T S V E R Z E I C H N I S
Kristina Deutsch, Claudia Echinger-Maurach, Eva-Bettina Krems, Baden im Schloss? Eine Einführung in die Kunstgeschichte des höfischen Bades
Teil I: Zwischen Therme, Hamam und stufetta: Die Entstehung des frühmodernen Bades
• Hubertus Günther, Badekultur in der italienischen Renaissance
• Jens Niebaum, „I bagni così son da ordenare“: Vitruv, die balnea und die Architekten der Renaissance
• Sabine Frommel, Sebastiano Serlios „padiglione al costume di Franza“ in Fontainebleau und sein Beitrag für die Entwicklung der Badekultur am französischen Hof
• Stephanie Hanke, Zwischen Orient und Okzident: Bäder und Badekultur in Genua im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert
Teil II: Von der Kinderstube zum Alterssitz: Die Inszenierung fürstlicher Macht im Bad
• Anne Bloemacher, Das erste Bad Maximilians I. in der Historia Friderici et Maximiliani
• Kristina Deutsch, „Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra“? Die Badstube der Burg Trausnitz in Landshut
• Sophie Mouquin, „Cet appartement est dédié à la magnificence, & fait une des sept merveilles de Versailles“: Das Appartement des bains Ludwigs XIV. in Versailles
• Jan Pieper, Das Fürstenbad im Palazzo Ducale von Sabbioneta (1554–1591)
Teil III: Heimliche Blicke und dynastische Quellen: Die Symbolik höfischer Frauen- und Männerbäder
• Margot Thun-Rauch, Die Badewanne der Philippine Welser: Gesundheit und Genuss
• Sigrid Ruby, Macht und Ohnmacht des Privaten: Die Gemälde der dames au bain
• Ilaria Hoppe, Baden in Florenz: Kunst, Körper und Medizin
• Vera Herzog, Baden für die Dynastie: Die Symbolik des fürstlichen Badepavillons am Beispiel der Łazienka in Warschau und der Münchner Badenburg
Teil IV: Schaubäder? Funktionen des Schlossbades zwischen Rekreation und Politik
• Claudia Echinger-Maurach, „Mona Lisa im Bade“: Das Appartement des bains in Schloss Fontainebleau
• Antje Scherner, Ein Bad ohne Wasser? Das Marmorbad in Kassel und die Kasseler Bäder der Frühen Neuzeit
• Guillaume Nicoud, Le bain de Catherine II au Palais d’hiver de Saint-Pétersbourg
• Ralf Richard Wagner, Die „Maison de bain“ des Kurfürsten Carl Theodor von der Pfalz
Abbildungsnachweise
Tafelteil
Exhibition | Epic Tales from Ancient India
The Demon Dhumraksha Leads His Army, North India, Kulu or Bahu, ca. 1700–10; opaque watercolor on paper (The San Diego Museum of Art, Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, 1990.1107).
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Press release from the Blanton:
Epic Tales from Ancient India: Paintings from The San Diego Museum of Art
Princeton University Art Museum, 19 November 2016 — 5 February 2017
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, 9 July — 1 October 2017
The San Diego Museum of Art, 3 March — 12 June 2018
One of the most comprehensive collections of South Asian paintings outside of India will be on display at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin from July 9 to October 1, 2017. These dynamic images were originally associated with important literary and religious texts and will be organized according to thematic narratives. Museum visitors will be introduced to the epic stories that continue to hold great cultural value in India and beyond.
Rama and Sita Enthroned, ca. 1800; opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 24.7 × 18.5 cm (The San Diego Museum of Art, Edwin Binney 3rd Collection).
“The Blanton is honored to partner with The San Diego Museum of Art to bring this remarkable collection to Austin,” said Blanton director Simone Wicha. “The epic stories have much to say about courage, loyalty, love and friendship, and the paintings themselves impress with the delicacy of their technique, the boldness of their design, and the humanity of the stories they convey. This exhibition is sure to delight audiences of all ages.”
Epic Tales from Ancient India: Paintings from The San Diego Museum of Art represents the highest achievement of court paintings from several regions of the Indian subcontinent from the 16th to the 19th centuries and have been selected from the renowned Edwin Binney 3rd Collection of The San Diego Museum of Art. This exhibition depicts stories that have been integral to South Asian culture for hundreds of years and provides a compelling introduction to classic Indian and Persian texts, including Bhagavata Purana, a Sanskrit text about the Hindu god Vishnu and his different incarnations; Ramayana, the adventures of Prince Rama of Ayodhya; Ragamala, a text that explores various modes in Indian classical music; and works of Persian literature, including Shahnameh, an epic poem about the legendary kings of Iran. The colorful manuscripts depict dutiful heroes, loyal friends, and strong-willed women, and each character serves as an instructive model in. Dangerous beasts, cunning adversaries, and assorted demons must be confronted and subdued. Battle scenes teeming with combatants give way to quieter moments, such as lovers meeting for a secret tryst. Many of the stories have religious significance and show the intervention of various divinities in maintaining cosmic order.
Complementing the paintings will be examples of Chola-period processional bronze images, Vishnu and Hanuman, on loan from the Kimbell Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, respectively. These works hint at Hindu ritual practices and highlight the religious significance of the narratives.
Ray Williams, who leads the Blanton’s education efforts and serves as the managing curator for this exhibition, has a deep appreciation for India’s cultural expressions through story and image. “The struggle for cosmic order in the face of dark forces and fulfilling one’s duty with courage and integrity, are ongoing human concerns. The paintings invite us to plunge into Rama’s world, for example, and readily join in the quest to rescue Sita from the ten-headed, mustachioed, demon king and his frightful army,” said Williams.
A series of public programs will complement the exhibition, featuring gallery talks, musical demonstrations, classical Indian dance, and storytelling performances.
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The catalogue is distributed by Yale UP:
Marika Sardar, with contributions by Neeraja Poddar, Qamar Adamjee, and Alka Patel, Epic Tales from Ancient India: Paintings from The San Diego Museum of Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 164 pages, ISBN: 978 03002 23729, $45.
Exploring the topic of narrativity in Indian art, this beautiful and deeply researched book considers illustrations to the Bhagavata Purana, the Ramayana, the Ragamala, and a range of texts in the Persian language, notably the Shahnama. Featuring stunning reproductions of paintings made between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries from the Edwin Binney 3rd Collection at The San Diego Museum of Art, the publication includes thorough and fascinating explanations of the narrative of each text, including how that narrative is visually conveyed. Essays examine why these particular stories are so enduring, why patrons may have chosen to have a copy of a particular text made for their own collections, and how artists responded to the challenge of creating new versions of venerable classics.
Marika Sardar is Associate Curator of Southern Asian and Islamic art at The San Diego Museum of Art. Neeraja Poddar is the Mellon Fellow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Qamar Adamjee is Associate Curator of South Asian and Islamic art at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. Alka Patel is Associate Professor of South Asian and Islamic Art at the University of California at Irvine.
New Book | The Anatomy of Color (or Colour)
From Thames & Hudson:
Patrick Baty, The Anatomy of Colour: The Story of Heritage Paints and Pigments (London: Thames & Hudson, 2017), 352 pages, ISBN: 978 05005 19332, $50.
Why were primary colors popular in postwar kitchens? Why did the Art Deco era prefer clean lines and pastel shades? This comprehensive illustrated history of the use of color and paint in interior decoration answers these questions and many more.
Drawing on his huge specialist archive, historian and paint expert Patrick Baty traces the evolution of pigments and paint colors together with color systems and standards, and he examines their impact on the color palettes used in interiors from the 1650s to the 1960s. He charts the creation in paint of the common and expensive colors made from traditional earth pigments between 1650 and 1799. He then explores the emergence of color systems and standards and their influence on paint colors together with the effect of industrialized production on the texture and durability of paints. Finally, Baty turns his attention to twentieth-century color standards. Woven throughout the authoritative and revealing text are specially commissioned photographs of pages from rare color reference books. Reproductions of interiors from home decor books, dating from every era, are included throughout, highlighting the distinctive color trends and styles of painting particular to each period.
Patrick Baty is a historian of architectural paint and color. He works as a consultant in the decoration of historic buildings and runs the family paint business Papers and Paints in London. He lectures and contributes regularly to magazines and journals.
New Book | Gainsborough: A Portrait
From Weidenfeld & Nicolson:
James Hamilton, Gainsborough: A Portrait (London: W&N, 2017), 448 pages, ISBN: 978 147460 0521, £25.
Frank, lucid and modern, this is a fresh portrait of Thomas Gainsborough, the most sensuous artist of the eighteenth century. Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) lived as if electricity shot through his sinews and crackled at his finger ends. He was a gentle and empathetic family man but had a volatility that could lead him to slash his paintings and a loose libidinous way of speaking, writing, and behaving that shocked many deeply. He would be dynamite in polite society today.
In this exhilarating new biography—the first in decades—James Hamilton reveals Gainsborough in his many contexts: the easy-going Suffolk lad, transported to the heights of fashion by a natural talent; the rake-on-the-make in London, learning his art in the shadow of Hogarth; falling on his feet when he married a duke’s daughter with a handsome private income; the top society-portrait painter in Bath and London who earned huge sums by bringing the right people into his studio; the charming and amusing friend of George III and Queen Charlotte who nevertheless kept clear of the aristocratic embrace.
There has been much art history written about this chameleon of art, but with fresh insights into original sources, Gainsborough: A Portrait transforms our understanding of this fascinating man and enlightens the century that bore him.
James Hamilton is an art and cultural historian. His books include Turner: A Life; Faraday: The Life, shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and A Strange Business: Making Art and Money in Nineteenth-Century Britain, which in 2014 was named Art Book of the Year by The Sunday Times. Hamilton was, until retirement in 2013, curator of art collections and projects in Portsmouth, Wakefield, Sheffield, Leeds, and the University of Birmingham, where he is a Fellow of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts.
Early Gainsborough Drawings Discovered at Windsor
Rosie Razzall (left) and Lindsay Stainton (right) in the Print Room at Windsor Castle. Still from the BBC video describing the discovery (102 seconds), by video journalist Alex Stanger.
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As Rebecca Jones reports for the BBC (10 July 2017). . .
An album of drawings by 18th-century painter Thomas Gainsborough has been discovered in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. The drawings had been misattributed to another artist, Sir Edwin Landseer, since the reign of Queen Victoria. But after studying the 25 black-and-white chalk sketches, historian Lindsay Stainton confirmed they are actually early works by one of Britain’s most famous painters.
“It’s thrilling,” she told the BBC. “It’s the very best collection of Gainsborough’s early drawings in existence.” . . .
“We’re very much convinced that these are an important group of early drawings by Thomas Gainsborough,” agrees Rosie Razzall, curator of prints and drawings at the Royal Library. “It’s an extremely significant discovery. It means we are able to re-appraise the early work of Gainsborough.” . . .
The full article and video are available here»
Small Token from Carriera’s ‘Winter’ Recently Discovered
The Three Magi, print, 4.2 cm × 3.3 cm; this small print was sealed inside the frame of Rosalba Carriera’s Personification of Winter (ca. 1726), between the pastel’s wooden support and canvas liner (The Royal Collection Trust).
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From the press release (9 May 2017) describing an extraordinary item discovered as a result of research for the Royal Collection Trust’s exhibition Canaletto and the Art of Venice, now on view at The Queen’s Gallery:
An 18th-century good-luck token has been found hidden inside Rosalba Carriera’s pastel A Personification of Winter by Royal Collection Trust’s conservators. One of the artist’s finest works, Winter was produced around 1726 for Joseph Smith, a British merchant, art collector, and dealer who lived in Venice and acted as agent to many artists, including Carriera and, most famously, Canaletto. Sealed inside the frame between the pastel’s wooden support and canvas liner, the token came to light during conservation of Winter for display in Royal Collection Trust’s exhibition Canaletto & the Art of Venice, which opened at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace on 19 May.
Just 4.2 cm × 3.3 cm in size, the token is in the form of a print of the three Magi and was clearly placed there by Carriera to protect the fragile pastel on its journey to its new owner. In the 18th century these tiny prints, known as santini (‘little saints’), were kept in prayer books or clothing as affordable and portable devotional objects. Rosalba Carriera, a very devout woman, is known to have been particularly fond of images of the three Magi, whose association with arduous journeys made them appropriate guardians for her works. Similar tokens have been found attached to other pastels by the artist.
In a letter to a friend in Florence on 3 December 1729, the Venetian nobleman Pier Caterino Zeno described Carriera’s devotion to the Magi: “Once she gave me a certain portrait to send to my brother in Vienna, and she gave me a little card of the three aforementioned adoring Magi; and said that to these she entrusted the safe outward journey of the portrait; adding that whenever such little images had accompanied her pictures, they had always arrived safely.”
Rosalba Giovanna Carriera, A Personification of Winter, ca. 1726, pastel on paper (London: Royal Collection Trust, 400647).
Rosalba Carriera was one of the most celebrated women artists of her day. Her pastels were highly admired by 18th-century European collectors, and prominent foreign visitors to Venice and Grand Tourists were eager to sit for portraits by her. The soft, velvety texture of pastel was particularly suited to Carriera’s sensual personifications such as Winter, portrayed as a young woman with a fur wrap slipping from her shoulders.
In 1762 the young monarch George III purchased virtually the entire collection of Joseph Smith, including Winter, which was among Smith’s most prized possessions. Thanks to this single acquisition, the Royal Collection contains one of the finest groups of 18th-century Venetian art in the world, including the largest collection of works by Canaletto. Winter hung in George III’s bedchamber at Buckingham House (later Buckingham Palace) alongside Carriera’s pastel of Summer.
Clara de la Peña McTigue, Royal Collection Trust’s Head of Paper Conservation, said, “The conservation of pastels is a very delicate operation, as the pigment surface of these works is so fragile. When we carefully removed the frame, we became very excited when we noticed a small piece of paper in the narrow space between the pastel’s support and the canvas, and suspected it might be one of Carriera’s tokens.”
Rosie Razzall, Royal Collection Trust’s Curator of Prints and Drawings and the exhibition’s co-curator, said, “It was only during conservation treatment that the print came to light. It’s incredible to think that it was put there by Carriera herself nearly 300 years ago to protect the work from ill fortune and has remained undiscovered until now.”
AHRC-funded Workshops | Architecture and Society, 1760–1840
After Jenkinson, View of Liverpool, 1813.
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From H-ArtHist:
Architecture and Society in an Age of Reform, 1760–1840
Liverpool, 19–20 September 2017; Bristol, 16–17 March 2018; and Birmingham, June 2018
Proposals due by 31 July 2017
We are delighted to announce the launch of a new AHRC-funded international research network on Architecture and Society in an Age of Reform, which aims to establish a dynamic, long-lasting, multi- and interdisciplinary research forum to investigate the relationship between architecture and society in the period 1760–1840. As part of the project we will be holding three workshops:
Liverpool, 19–20 September 2017
Bristol, 16–17 March 2018
Birmingham, date TBC June 2018
Each workshop will focus on the same broad set of research questions, with site visits on the first day designed to stimulate discussion on the second day. The broad sets of questions we will be exploring include:
User experience
• How can we reimagine the experience of building users?
• What can diaries, letters and literary evidence tell us?
• (How) can we use digital methods to recreate experience?
Patronage and knowledge
• How were buildings funded and what is the relationship between funding and form?
• How can we use the archival evidence resulting from patterns of patronage (legislation, subscription lists, contracts etc)?
Radical and conservative architecture
• How could and did architecture offer ways to contest, reform and reimagine society and/or maintain and strengthen existing structures?
• How can we use treatises, pattern books and other sources to identify different architectural discourses and different approaches to the use of space?
New and reimagined building types
• What do building forms tell us about contemporary understanding of their functions?
• How did architecture shape knowledge?
• How can we use surviving buildings and other non-textual sources as evidence?
• What are the most effective ways of engaging the wider public in this research?
Site Visits
The first day of each workshop will be dedicated to site visits, which are designed to stimulate new insights about the relationship between architecture and society in an Age of Reform. All travel will be arranged in advance, and network organisers will provide fact sheets for each site so that we can think about the buildings with the basic information at our fingertips.
Panel Formats
The second day of each workshop will be dedicated to focussed discussion designed to respond to the venue visits, to share ideas about the network’s key research questions, build research collaborations and identify potential research themes for future research. We will adopted a blended format designed to stimulate discussion, including the following formats:
• 5-minute speed-dating introductions to research
• spotlight sessions on local research institutions and heritage partners
• keynote papers
• roundtable discussion
• breakout
The project team invites initial expressions of interest from scholars interested in any element of the Architecture and Society research programme. If you feel you can make a significant contribution to any or all of our workshops, please send a brief summary of your research interests and career stage to the Principal Investigator (Alexandrina.Buchanan@liverpool.ac.uk) by 31 July 2017. The AHRC has generously provided funding to support a limited number of participants’ UK travel and accommodation expenses.
New Acquisition | View of Charleston, ca. 1774
Engraved by Samuel Smith, after Thomas Leitch, A View of CHARLES-TOWN, in the Capital of SOUTH CAROLINA, published in London, 3 June 1776, hand-colored line engraving (Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund, 2017-287)
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Press release (11 July 2017) from Colonial Williamsburg:
A rare, historically important view of Charleston, South Carolina, showing its appearance at the time of the American Revolution was recently purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for its collection. A View of CHARLES-TOWN, in the Capital of SOUTH CAROLINA, engraved in London by Samuel Smith after a painting by Thomas Leitch, depicts recognizable Charleston landmarks during its peak of prosperity prior to the outbreak of the war.
“Acquisition of this exceptional, pre-Revolutionary view perfectly addresses the Foundation’s core mission, particularly since it furthers our understanding of early America and its Southern colonies,” said Mitchell B. Reiss, president and CEO of Colonial Williamsburg. “I applaud our generous donors for making the purchase a reality.”
“Eighteenth-century views of American cities are relatively rare, and those of southern centers even more so,” said Ronald L. Hurst, the Foundation’s Carlisle Humelsine chief curator and vice president for collections, conservation, and museums. “At nearly three feet in width and retaining its original water coloring, this outstanding view of one of the South’s great seaports is exceptionally rare and important.”
This print, in its full original color, was engraved in 1774 after Leitch painted his scene within a year of his arrival in Charleston from London in 1773 and arranged for it to be shipped back there to be engraved for printing. Although little is known about Leitch, an advertisement that he placed in the South Carolina Gazette soliciting subscribers to assist with the cost of producing the print, and noting that he was sending the painting ‘home’ to have it engraved, confirms he came from London.
The artist rendered his painting in the Dutch panoramic style that enhanced the expanse of the coastline by increasing its width in relation to its height, forcing the viewer’s eye to move back and forth across the canvas. The image is curious, however; while earlier versions of Charleston show calm seas and dozens of merchant ships in the harbor, in this one, Leitch included only one British trading ship in the harbor. Only about six months earlier, Massachusetts traveler Josiah Quincy noted of the Charleston harbor that “the number of shipping far surpassed all I had ever seen in Boston….”
As Colonial Williamsburg’s Deputy Chief Curator Margaret Pritchard speculates, “It is possible that the notable absence of trading vessels venturing into the choppy waters of the Cooper River, under stormy skies, was intended to suggest the political tension between Charlestonians and the Mother country.” In 1773, just months before Leitch painted his view, Britain passed the Tea Act, and Charleston’s outraged citizens left the British-imported tea on the docks to rot. It was the following year in which townspeople elected delegates to the Continental Congress.
Although the print was engraved in 1774, it was not issued until 1776. Other known copies are held at the Yale University Art Gallery, the New York Public Library, and the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. The original painting is in the collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA). The print was acquired through The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund, which restricts its funds for object purchases.
Display | Hyacinthus by Tiepolo
Now on view at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza:
Hyacinthus by Tiepolo
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 23 June — 17 December 2017
In conjunction with the celebration of the Museum’s 25th anniversary and to coincide with World Pride 2017 in Madrid, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is now presenting the results of the restoration and technical study of one of the most important and fascinating works in its collection and probably its greatest gay icon: The Death of Hyacinthus by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
Giambattista Tiepolo, The Death of Hyacinthus, ca. 1752–53 (Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza).
Following its restoration in the Museum’s studios, the painting has now returned to its habitual location in Room 17, accompanied by a special display organised by the departments of Restoration and Old Master painting. This installation includes X-radiographs and infra-red reflectographs that show the most interesting aspects of the work undertaken, explain the methodology applied, and reveal the outstanding quality of the painting. These images are accompanied by two preparatory drawings loaned by the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart and a video of the entire restoration process, which also explains the most important discoveries made during this restoration and study project and features interesting details from the painting.
Given the widespread interest in restoration projects of this type, with this new display the Museum is aiming to introduce visitors to the working methods used by restorers, which are essential for determining the appropriate treatments to be applied in each case and which also provide art historians with important information. Knowledge of the techniques and materials employed by artists is fundamental for deciding on the procedures to be adopted when halting the deterioration of a work of art. Furthermore, focusing on the most detailed aspects of the creation of a work also allows us to enter into the artist’s mind to some extent and that of his or her period and to understand the creative act and its context on the basis of more solid arguments.
The Death of Hyacinthus (ca.1752–53) was commissioned by Baron Wilhelm Friedrich Schaumburg-Lippe, who lived in a town near Würzburg (Germany) where Tiepolo was employed with his sons Giovanni Domenico and Lorenzo from 1750 onwards on the decoration of the residence of the new Prince-Bishop, Carl Philipp von Greiffenclau. The painting seems to have an elegiac nature as a homage to the Baron’s lover, a young Spanish musician with whom he had lived in Venice and who had died in 1751.
The painting is inspired by an episode from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book X, 162–219): Apollo and his lover, the young and beautiful Hyacinthus, Prince of Sparta, were competing at throwing the discus when the latter was mortally wounded when struck on the head by the discus. In the classical account Hyacinthus was killed by his own clumsiness as he threw the discus during the competition, but another version recounts that as it was thrown by Apollo, it was blown off course by Zephyrus, god of the west wind, who had been spurned by Hyacinthus in favour of Apollo. Unable to return him to life, Apollo immortalised the youth by making the hyacinth flower sprout from his blood on the ground.
Tiepolo depicts the scene on the basis of the Italian translation of Ovid’s text by Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara (Venice, 1561), in which the discus throwing is replaced by a tennis match, a fashionable sport among the nobility of the time. In the foreground we see the racquet and some balls cast on the ground and in the background a net that indicates the tennis court. Hyacinthus lies dying in front of the despairing Apollo, who feels responsible for the accident and whose gestures indicate the fateful outcome. Apollo had neglected his duties as a god to devote his time to his lover and Tiepolo reminds us of this by including two of his attributes: the lyre and the quiver with arrows, abandoned on the ground on the left while he shows Apollo himself as a youthful athlete with blonde hair and a laurel wreath. Behind them Hyacinthus’s father King Amyclas and his retinue watch the scene with sombre expressions. Numerous iconographical details emphasize the painting’s symbolic language, from the figure of the macaw, a symbol of courtship, to the mocking expression of the statue of Pan, protector of male sexuality, with Apollo’s hand covering his genitals and his thumb imitating the shape of an erection.
The composition of the central group was tried out in numerous preparatory sketches by both the artist and his son and assistant Giovanni Domenico. These studies play with the different positions adopted by the two principal figures, bringing them closer together or changing the poses. Other studies feature specific details that were subsequently carefully reproduced in the final version, like the figure of Hyacinthus and the depiction of the small putto in the drawings from the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart on display in the exhibition.
The restoration of The Death of Hyacinthus has essentially focused on the complex elimination of the superimposed layers of oxidised and yellowed varnishes which had accumulated over time. Cleaning the painting has recovered its visual unity and the richness of the original palette with its vibrant, subtly nuanced colours. The architectural features and figures are now also easier to read and the original pictorial depth can once again be properly appreciated. Taking micro-samples of the pigments has provided new information on them and allowed for the materials used by the artist and their state of conservation to be analysed, while gigapixel images and macrophotographs have revealed the tiniest alterations and details of the painting. Ultraviolet and infra-red images have similarly provided valuable information on the creation of the work and the artist’s methods.
An X-radiograph of a painting shows the modifications introduced by the artist during the process of its creation. In The Death of Hyacinthus it can be seen that Tiepolo changed the position of the king, turning him to face the principal scene directly, which resulted in a modification of the folds of his clothing and the position of his arm. Behind this figure Tiepolo added a soldier and also changed the size and shape of both figures’ headwear. In the lower part of the composition it is evident that the straps of the quiver were originally longer. Unlike the other figures, the putto is not visible in the X-radiograph as it was painted with a type of pigment that can be easily penetrated by X-rays.
Tiepolo worked more confidently on the right part of the painting, locating the principal figures in a more emphatic manner and with hardly any changes. There are small modifications to the position of Hyacinthus’s arm and Apollo’s thumb, the position of which has been interpreted as an erotic reference. His knee, on which Cupid is leaning, was slightly moved, with the result that the latter’s left hand is suspended in the air. Tiepolo also changed the background motifs as the X-radiograph reveals what might be the sketch of a mountain as well as different architectural structures which he ultimately covered over with clouds or vegetation in order to create a greater sense of space.
This image reveals the preparatory drawing or study concealed by the paint layers and thus the changes introduced into the composition by the artist, some of them also visible on the Xradiograph. In this case it can be seen that the figure of Amyclas originally had a cloth headdress which was then replaced with a hat, while his right hand also reveals some corrections or changes with regard to the final position. The god Apollo appears in the preparatory drawing with some ornamental accessories such as an earring and a belt decorated with a pearl, which were subsequently covered over with brushstrokes of pigment. In addition, his left thumb was not originally superimposed over the figure of Pan as we see in the final painting and some lines of under-drawing are visible that locate Apollo’s knee in a more elevated position and in contact with Cupid’s left hand. Finally, Tiepolo made a slight change to the position of the drapery over Hyacinthus’s leg.
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